The Secret Prince (41 page)

“So,” Frankie said, breaking the silence, “just to be clear on this point, you do know that you’d be—sorry, it’s just too good—King Henry the Eighth?”

“It’s not funny,” Henry snapped, as Frankie and Adam snickered.

29

L
ord Havelock had not been a beloved professor. He’d
been, beyond everything else, unpleasant. He bullied, and he played favorites, and he gave notoriously low marks. But the hastening of death is a melancholy affair, and to treat the abrupt end of a man’s life as anything other than tragedy would be unchivalrous indeed.

Because while Lord Havelock had been prejudiced and certainly elitist, he had not been wicked. He had cared for Valmont, raising the boy without complaint and without wanting. He had spoken on Henry, Adam, and Rohan’s behalf so that they might not be expelled after they had proven themselves to be apt pupils, and
he had looked the other way when the boys had formed their battle society. And, perhaps most telling of his character, he had died selflessly and with honor.

But Lord Havelock’s students did not know any of this. They knew only what they saw: the military history master’s body returned to Knightley Academy in a pine box etched with the inscription: “Yea though we roar with the fire of a mighty dragon, we are but its scales, shed when no longer needed, and lost without mourning as the great beast marches on.”

Valmont had gone white at the news, and then quietly turned and walked back down the first-year corridor, closing himself inside his room. There he stayed for three days, refusing to take his meals in the dining hall or to attend his classes. Ollie was sent up with food, and the first years watched the scrawny serving boy knock repeatedly before leaving the tray outside Valmont’s door in defeat.

Henry thought about going to speak to Valmont himself, to explain what had happened, and perhaps lessen some of the unfortunate guilt he, Henry, felt over Lord Havelock’s death. But he never quite managed to summon the courage, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have known what to say.

Henry and Adam had quietly rejoined their classmates on Headmaster Winter’s orders, as though pretending their absence had never happened would make it any less of a curiosity. They spent their nights in the library, making up their missed assignments under the watchful eye of Professor Turveydrop, and trying to repair the distance that had appeared between themselves and Rohan.

For though Rohan was overjoyed to have them back, there was a new coolness to their friendship. Rohan had been left behind twice now, and so many things seemed to divide them—a fear of Sir Frederick, whom Rohan had known only as a kindly professor; the drudgery of serving work; the horrible journey home from the Nordlands in the company of Lord Havelock’s corpse.

And then there were the marks on Henry’s and Adam’s arms. Rohan had balked at the sight of them, claiming such marks were only fit for pirates.

“Really?” Adam had asked brightly. “Girls like pirates, don’t they? Do you reckon I should get an earring to go with it?”

“It might clash with your yarmulke,” Henry had said, barely able to keep a straight face.

“Oh, right.” Adam’s face had fallen. “Maybe if I just carried around a sword instead?”

“But then they might mistake you for a knight,” Henry had pointed out.

Rohan had shaken his head, left his roommates to their preposterous antics, and gone off to find James.

The morning of Lord Havelock’s funeral dawned unseasonably warm. Henry grimaced as he looked out the window at the bright sunlight, wishing the weather might have conducted itself with appropriate decorum.

But it was too late for it now. The students gathered solemnly in the school chapel, and only a few of them noticed that the pine box had been replaced by a fine coffin made of yew.

Valmont sat in the front pew of the chapel, next to a woman in an enormous black mourning hat and veil, whom Henry took to be his mother. She sobbed theatrically through the service in a way that made Henry suspect she had spent the entire weekend shopping for the perfect funeral bonnet.

The board of trustees came, and a handful of lord ministers. They sat somberly in the back, and Sir Robert joined them.

Headmaster Winter spoke, and then Fergus Valmont,
though Henry couldn’t have told you what either of them said, just that they both seemed to have experienced a profound loss, which had shaken them to their very souls. He was acutely aware of a number of students realizing for the first time that Lord Havelock had been Valmont’s guardian.

Henry stared down at the gold ring he now wore; it had been inside the parcel from Lord Mortensen, along with three letters: one for him, one for Headmaster Winter, and one for Lord Minister Marchbanks. Henry had kept his letter unopened and had given the others to Headmaster Winter, who had revealed nothing of their contents. But then, what could the letters possibly say that he didn’t already know?

Henry listened to the dirge of the pipe organ and twisted his ring, reading the inscription etched around its band:
Que mon honneur est sans tache.

“Let my honor be without stain.”

Well,
he thought grimly,
it’s a bit too late for that.

The service ended somberly, and as the students spilled out of the chapel, Henry felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned.

Valmont’s face was drawn, and purplish smudges
beneath his eyes betrayed his lack of sleep. Unlike the rest of the students, he didn’t wear his formal uniform but rather a neat dark suit. He swallowed thickly and glared at Henry through his spectacles.

Henry had been expecting this. He followed Val-mont over to a stone bench, but neither of them made any move to sit. They stared at each other, and then Valmont broke the silence.

“You did this,” he accused.

Henry merely bowed his head.

Encouraged, Valmont continued. “I wish it had been you instead. You or your precious Professor Stratford.”

Henry felt anger welling up inside him, and he struggled to master it. “I’m sorry,” he said hotly. “I truly am. I never meant it to happen. I didn’t know—I thought Sir Frederick was gone. I thought he blamed me. I never thought it was going to be your uncle in that cell. I tried to save him; it was just too dangerous, and I …” Henry trailed off miserably.

“What are you talking about?” Valmont demanded.

Henry frowned. Valmont didn’t know? “How Sir Frederick killed Lord Havelock,” Henry said.

Valmont paled, and Henry realized that Valmont
had stayed locked inside his room refusing to come out, that he had heard only of his uncle’s death, and not of the circumstances.

The one thing Henry remembered about the funeral was that Lord Havelock’s death had been called noble, but it had not been explained. Henry had told Headmaster Winter in excruciating detail what had happened, and he didn’t think he could bear to tell the tale another time. But then he saw the look on Valmont’s face and knew that he had to.

“Come on,” Henry said, nodding toward the woods.

“I’m not going anywhere with you, you murderer,” Valmont spat, and then he looked instantly sorry.

“Suit yourself.”

“Fine. Let’s go, servant boy.”

Henry told him everything that had happened, up until he’d left Lord Havelock’s cell. Valmont was quiet for a long while. He unearthed a half-buried stone with the toe of his boot.

“So you were wrong,” he said finally. “There was no combat training.”

“No,” Henry admitted. “There wasn’t. Just another secret battle society.”

“I really do hate you, you know,” Valmont said.

“Good. You should.”

“Good, because I do.”

But Henry could tell that Valmont didn’t truly mean it. They’d become friends somehow, without their realizing.

When Admiral Blackwood pulled Henry aside and told him that he wouldn’t be marching with the rest of the students in the King Victor’s Day parade, he wasn’t surprised.

“It’s the headmaster’s orders,” Admiral Blackwood said.

“Of course.” Henry nodded. “I understand completely.”

Which was why Henry stayed behind at school while the rest of his classmates went off to the city for the day, dressed in their formal uniforms and hats, laughing and joking as they crossed the quadrangle.

From the window of his room, Henry watched them go.

He pulled a knight detective novel from his shelf and settled at his desk to read, but it was no good; the story merely reminded him of the career he would have chosen, if the choice were still his.

Henry threw the book across the room, watching it smack into the wardrobe and then flop onto the floor in defeat. He put his head in his hands.

And then, without quite knowing what else to do, he pulled out his ethics textbook and began to study for the end of term exams. Not that they mattered.

Henry glared glumly at the textbook for the better part of an hour, until someone knocked on the door to his room.

“Come in,” he mumbled.

It was Lord Minister Marchbanks.

“Er,” Henry said, surging to his feet and giving the proper bow. “Good afternoon, my lord minister.”

Lord Marchbanks bowed in return, and Henry’s cheeks colored as he recognized the bow. It was one Frankie often teased him for using by accident, though he never had. It was the bow used when addressing a foreign prince.

“Good afternoon, lad. May I call you Henry?”

“Yes, please,” Henry said with much relief.

“I was wondering if I might have a word?”

“Certainly, my lord minister.”

“Come, let us take a walk about the grounds. It is lovely this time of year.”

Lord Marchbanks was right; the weather was lovely, and the pathways through the quadrangle were bordered with vibrant sprays of bluebells and primroses. As they walked through the quadrangle, Lord Marchbanks frowned at Henry.

“I really should have suspected,” he said.

“Suspected what, my Lord Minister?”

“That you were one of my son’s irresponsible friends from school.”

“You mean during the envoy,” Henry said, cringing.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, lad. You made a very convincing serving boy. I was sad to hear you’d taken ill on the ride back. I had quite a horrible boy who steeped tea as though it were dishwater.”

Henry grinned in spite of himself.

“But enough of that,” Lord Marchbanks continued. “Let’s get down to it, shall we?”

“Down to what, sir?”

“I’ll admit the letter certainly shocked me. But then, it is a remarkable fortune. We were all worried they’d scare up someone quite unsuitable—a
campagnard
who could barely read, for example, or else someone horribly spoiled in an exiled court.”

“I’m sorry, my Lord Minister, but I don’t follow.”

“You, lad!” Lord Marchbanks said. “It’s perfect. I couldn’t have dreamed of someone better—though a few years older wouldn’t have hurt, but you’ll grow up fast enough.”

Henry sighed. He still wasn’t exactly following Lord Marchbanks’s train of thought, but he could certainly venture a guess. “So you know, sir, about Lord Mortensen and his … plan?”

“I suspected. That’s why I set up the envoy—so that I might have my suspicions proven and so that I might have an excuse to speak with the man in person. If only that dratted Dimit Yascherov hadn’t been keeping an eye on me the entire time, we might have been able to speak at length. Mortensen’s letter was quite informative. I thank you for carrying it, Henry.”

“Not at all,” Henry said, wishing he’d read it. Derrick had mentioned something once about steaming letters open….

“As I was saying, lad,” Lord Marchbanks continued, “we at the Ministerium were worried about what might happen in the aftermath of a war with the Nordlands, not to speak of the horrors of the war itself. But if your Lord Mortensen and his men can prevent a war, I would do everything in my power to help them.”

“As would I,” said Henry.

“Which is why you must stay at Knightley Academy,” Lord Marchbanks said.

“Sir?”

“I can see it in your eyes, lad. It is the same hurt that Derrick carries, knowing he must take up my position one day, that he cannot choose to be a secret service knight as he wishes. And yet he took the Knightley Exam knowing his fate. For him, a taste of the life he wishes is preferable to sulking about his obligations in a less prestigious school, or at home with private tutors.”